Why You SHOULDN’T Marry Him — If You’re Having Doubts

It's normal to have jitters around your wedding day, but if you're experiencing "cold feet" about your relationship, a new study says that might be a reason to call the whole thing off.

In what they say is “the first scientific study to test whether doubts about getting married are more likely to lead to an unhappy marriage and divorce,” researchers at UCLA report that “newlywed wives who had doubts about getting married before their wedding were two-and-a-half times more likely to divorce four years later than wives without these doubts.”

Furthermore, among those couples who were still married four years after walking down the aisle, those husbands and wives who had experienced pre-wedding doubts were “significantly less satisfied” with their marriages than those who hadn’t.

But wait — doesn’t everyone have doubts or “cold feet” at one point or another before walking down the aisle? Isn’t that just par for the wedding course?

“Apparently not!” says Justin Lavner, a UCLA doctoral candidate in psychology and lead author of the study, published in the online version of the Journal of Family Psychology.

To be precise: when Lavner and his team asked 464 newlywed spouses, “Were you ever uncertain or hesitant about getting married?” for the study, 47 percent of husbands and 38 percent of wives said yes. So, more than half of all people report not ever feeling hesitant or doubtful (not even when they started fighting over seating arrangements?!). In sum, Lavner says, “It’s certainly prevalent, but no, not everyone does get cold feet.”

Lavner said his study didn’t distinguish between more moderate, “Wow, am I really ready for this?” doubts and more serious, “I really don’t know if this is the right life partner for me” feelings, but, regardless, when women have doubts, it’s more likely to predict eventual divorce than when men feel doubts. When only the husband had pre-wedding misgivings, 10 percent of the couples split up; when only the wife had doubts, 18 percent of couples ended up calling divorce attorneys. (When both partners had doubts, 20 percent of the couples got divorced.)

If you do find yourself having doubts before your wedding, does that mean you definitely shouldn’t get married? “No,” says Lavner, “but you should pay attention. You know yourself, your partner and your relationship more than anyone else does. If you’re having uncertainty, then you should talk about it.”

The things you’re worried about in your relationship — from problems with your mother-in-law to financial issues to whether or not you both want to have children — aren’t just going to go away after you tie the knot, says Lavner. “Problems don’t go away — if anything, they get worse over time,” he adds, so it’s best to address them early. “Every relationship eventually has problems, and it’s important that couples learn how to talk about them.

“You’re the best judge of yourself,” he adds. “You know what issues you need to deal with in your relationship” — so deal with them before they become a reason to exchange your wedding ring for a divorce cake!